In this county, we had to walk, eat, sleep and love in fear.

What can be said about chronic hunger. Perhaps that there's a hunger that can make you sick with hunger. That it comes in addition to the hunger you already feel. That there is a hunger which is always new, which grows insatiably, which pounces on the never-ending old hunger that already took such effort to tame. How can you face the world if all you can say about yourself is that you're hungry.

If only the right person would have to leave, everyone else would be able to stay in the country.

I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.

In Romanian society, I am not particularly well-liked. I don't often receive invitations.

When we don't speak, said Edgar, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves.

Language is so different from life. How am I supposed to fit the one into the other? How can I bring them together?